When greeting you, a cat will rub up against your leg partly to establish friendly physical contact with you, however there’s more to it than that. The cat normally begins by pushing against you with the top of its head or the side of its face, and then rubs all along its side and finally may slightly wrap its tail around you. After this it looks up and then repeats the procedure, sometimes many times. If you reach down and caress the cat, it will increase its rubbing, frequently pressing the side of its mouth against your hand, or pushing upwards with the top of its head. And then finally it wanders away, its greeting ritual concluded, sits down and washes its flank fur.

All of these factors have particular significances. Basically what the cat is doing is carrying out a scent exchange between it and you. There are unique scent glands on the temples and at the gape of the mouth. Another one is located at the base of the tail. Without your realizing it, your cat has marked you with its scent from these glands. The feline scents are too delicate for our unrefined noses, however it’s important also, for the cat to interpret our scent signals. This is accomplished by the flank rubbing factor of the greeting, followed by the cat sitting down and ‘tasting’ us with its tongue through the mere action of licking the fur it has just rubbed against us.

The winter weather is hard on pets. Make sure you have the arthritis and pain medicine you need to keep your pet moving.